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I thought the fact that he signaled me to enter would have meant he was fully dressed. But instead, I opened the door to find him shirtless, wiping a towel over his wet hair. Once again, I found it hard not to look at his gorgeous body. Seeing as though he’d caught me gawking at him this morning, I didn’t want to be caught in the act again. So I intentionally looked away from him as I spoke.
“Is the plan still to head downstairs for a drink?” I asked, staring out the window.
“Are you talking to a ghost outside or something?”
He was fucking with me.
I pretended not to understand his comment as I continued to look away. “What’s that?”
“I’m covered. You can look at me now.”
I turned to face him and cleared my throat.
He smirked. “How are you feeling?”
“Great.”
“I thought you might be a little sore.”
“Oh, I am, actually.”
“You know what would be really good for that?” he asked.
“What?”
“The hot tub. There’s one downstairs by the indoor pool. Wanna hit it?”
The prospect of taking a dip in the hot tub with him gave me mixed feelings.
“You have swim trunks?” I asked.
“No. But I was thinking you could go in alone.”
Ah. “I did bring a bathing suit, actually.”
“Perfect then.”
“What are you going to do while I’m in the hot tub?”
He shrugged. “Watch you?”
“You’re gonna sit there and gawk at me?”
“No.” He winked. “It would be rude to gawk at someone when they’re underdressed.”
Nice. Real nice dig.
I felt my face heat up. “I’ll go get my suit on.”
Downstairs at the pool, I got right into the hot tub while Milo went to the bar to grab a beer and a drink for me. He brought me a white wine and set it on the stone tile just outside of where I was immersed in the hot, bubbly water.
A little girl with floaties around her arms suddenly appeared and entered the hot tub. Her parents were on the other side of the pool area.
“Hello.” I smiled.
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“What’s your name?” Milo asked.
“Georgie.”
“Nice to meet you, Georgie,” he said. “I’m Milo Hooker, and this is my sister, Maddie Hooker.”
I chuckled at his emphasis on our fake last name. I’d almost forgotten about that.
The little girl played quietly as I leaned my head back and let the steam penetrate by achy body.
“Feeling better?” Milo asked, prompting me to open my eyes.
“You weren’t kidding. This really does help sore muscles.”
“I kind of wish I had my swim trunks now.”
Rather than agree with that and get myself in more trouble, I asked, “What’s your prediction about our flights tomorrow? Think we’ll make it out of here?”
He took a drink of his beer and nodded. “I do think tomorrow we’ll actually get out, although we made the right call on today.”
“You deserve all of the credit for that decision.”
“Well, I figured why not buy us one more day of not having to be our actual selves, right?”
“I have to say, I’m really digging Maddie. She has no worries in the world, aside from what to order off the drink menu. She’s impulsive—and she sort of knows how to ski now.” I grinned.
He smiled back, and then his expression turned more serious. “You weren’t the only one in need of a change. Believe me.”
I had to follow up on that. “So...I meant to ask. You said you’re a high school music teacher, but you’re in the midst of this trip, and now you’re going to New York. That seems like a lot of time off. How much vacation do you get?”
He looked down at his beer. “Actually, I took a semester off from teaching.”
“Wow. You can do that?”
“Apparently so. They let me.”
“You just needed a break?”
He exhaled. “I was starting to feel like my heart wasn’t in it. And it really needs to be. So I did something people rarely do: I gave myself a break.”
“Do you think you’ll be ready to go back after this semester?”
“I do. So many times in life, we just keep going because we feel like the whole world will crumble if we stop moving at a pace like the Energizer bunny. But that’s not necessarily how we were meant to operate. The principal at my school really likes me, so that helps, of course. If they hadn’t allowed me the leave of absence without guaranteeing I’d still have a job, I suppose I couldn’t have taken it.”
As much as I admired his philosophy, I was still internally scratching my head. “So, you’re…reevaluating your life with this time off?”
“You could say that.”
“I really envy that. It does take a lot of courage to know when to stop. I didn’t realize this trip would be sort of like that for me until I got stuck here. In just the two days we’ve been hanging out, I’ve realized so much about myself—my truest desires, how much I’ve missed living spontaneously.”
